CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies (formerly known as Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies or CLAGS)[1][2] was founded in 1991 by professor Martin Duberman as the first university-based research center in the United States dedicated to the study of historical, cultural, and political issues of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals and communities. Housed at the Graduate Center, CUNY, CLAGS sponsors public programs and conferences, offers fellowships to individual scholars, and functions as a conduit of information.[2] It also serves as a national center for the promotion of scholarship that fosters social change.[1]

CLAGS also provides scholarships and fellowships to members of the LGBTQ community. Some awards include the Robert Giard fellowship for visual arts (photography and videography), the Sylvia Rivera award for best paper in Transgender Studies, the Kessler Award for lifetime contributions to LGBTQ Studies, and the José Esteban Muñoz Award for activism.[5]

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CLAGS was founded by Martin Duberman - a professor of History at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Many of CLAGS founders claim that initial conversations about a research institute on lesbian and gay people began in Duberman's living room in 1985.[7][8]

In 1986, Duberman described how there was an increase in literature and research on lesbian and gay people. "My aim was political as well as intellectual: I felt that lesbian and gay scholars had much to tell the mainstream world about gender and sexuality and that their findings needed to be widely disseminated, not least as a way to contest right-wing propaganda about homosexuality as degenerate and criminal."[1] Duberman also described the intentionality of gender parity, in that they attempted to ensure that both lesbian women and gay men were included in the leadership and membership of the center.[1]

That same year, CLAGS founded the LGBTQ Scholars of Color network, which aims to connect and advance LGBTQ people of color in academia, scholarship, and research.[2] The inaugural LGBTQ Scholars of Color Conference gathered 200 attendees at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.[12]

José Esteban Muñoz was a Professor of Cultural Studies and Queer Studies at New York University. He was also a board member of CLAGS in the early 2000s. When Munoz passed away unexpectedly in 2013, CLAGS created the Munoz Award in honor of an LGBTQ activist who has promoted LGBTQ Studies in their own work. The recipient of the award engages in a public conversation with the CLAGS executive director on topics related to LGBTQ communities.

CLAGS hosts at least one conference a year- focusing on a range of topics like "Lesbians in the 1970s" to "Gay American History". In 2015, CLAGS hosted the first Queers and Comics conference. The keynote speaker were Alison Bechdel and Howard Cruse.[20]

One of the CLAGS early conferences was held in 1995. It was titled "Lesbian and Gay History," and Susan Stryker discussed her experience the conference as a reference point of the climate of the LGBT community during the early transgender movement.[21]

The first LGBTQ Scholars of Color National Conference was in 2015. Keynote speakers of the inaugural conference include Geena Rocero, Tania Israel, and David Malebranche. The conference was coordinated by Kevin Nadal and Debra Joy Perez.

The "Seminars in the City" series was created in the late 1990s, as a way of offering Queer Studies to the general public. Historically, these seminars have been taught by professors affiliated with CLAGS, and these were initially held at A Different Light bookstore in Chelsea.[13]
Topics have included "Lesbian Lives, Theories, and Herstories"; "Queer Sex Work in the City"; and "Bringing Queer to the K-12 Classroom".[25]